The Mariners were at a crossroads entering the offseason. Should they double down on their expensive core — namely Robinson Cano, Nelson Cruz, Felix Hernandez and Kyle Seager — or should they cash in those to get younger and less expensive and play for the future?

Seattle had to hire a general manager, and a few folks interested in the opening told me they sensed Seattle’s top brass was not in favor of a rebuild. No team has gone longer without reaching the playoffs (since 2001) than the Mariners. So the desire was to go for it.

Therefore, Jerry Dipoto would not have been named GM if his plans were to trade the established players. Regardless, his friends say Dipoto surveyed the situation and determined, for example, he could get a good return on Hernandez and Seager, but might struggle to do the same with Cruz and definitely with Cano. Seattle would have to eat a substantial part of the eight years at $192 million left on the pact and/or take a bad contract back, and that was not appealing.

And all you have to do is follow the bread crumbs early this offseason to see what Seattle is doing. No team has been more active. Dipoto has made four trades (for Nate Karns, Joaquin Benoit, Leonys Martin and Luis Sardina), one free agent retention (Franklin Gutierrez) and one free agent signing (Chris Iannetta). Dipoto has used prospects and money to put complementary players around the core.

Jerry Dipoto (right)AP

You don’t do that if you are planning to trade from the core, certainly not to make the 2016 team worse by dealing Cano to the Yankees for Jacoby Ellsbury. Since Cano and Ellsbury have similar contracts for the next five years, the only reason Seattle would make such a move would be to get out of the final three years of the contract, and Dipoto was hired to win now, not fix the 2021-23 payroll. And this doesn’t even include that the Yankees don’t want Cano, 33, back for the same reason they did not re-sign him — they were scared he would age poorly and expensively.

Would Cano like to be back in New York? Probably. He has greater comfort here than anywhere in the States. But his agent, Brodie Van Wagenen, spoke Monday with Dipoto to assure the GM that despite stories to the contrary, his client was not miserable and angling for ways out of Seattle. And, as Dipoto told me recently, he has made Cano feel wanted and integral by “bouncing ideas off of him” about improving the team. Dipoto said Cano has volunteered to speak to Mariner prospects in their Dominican academy and that he sees Cano “as one of our leaders.”

Cano hit .238 with just a .621 OPS, four homers and 24 RBIs in the first three months of the season (74 games), and then with Seattle out of the race, he reverted to being Cano, hitting .330 with a .920 OPS, 17 homers and 55 RBIs in 82 games from July 1 on. For his part, Dipoto said Cano showed his toughness and team-oriented nature by playing through a double sports hernia that was “significant” and surgically corrected in the offseason. He said “without a doubt” the injury is what caused the sub-par play as his lower-half mobility was impacted.

Dipoto said Cano learned to navigate around the pain, which is why he took off in the second half. Fully healed, Dipoto has no doubt who Cano will be and, in part, this is why he is not trying to trade him.